Los Angeles Voters to Decide 10 Local Measures and Elect Council Members and a City Attorney on November 3
LOS ANGELES, California — On Tuesday, November 3, Los Angeles voters will decide 10 local measures and elect two council members and a city attorney. Local media reported on November 1 that Los Angeles city voters will decide six City Charter amendments and two tax-related measures, while county voters will consider two County Charter changes.
Among the city tax measures, Measure FD would raise the sales tax by half a cent to provide an additional $345 million a year for the Los Angeles Fire Department: the city's sales tax would rise from 10.25% to 10.75%, with the money used to build new fire stations, increase hiring and upgrade equipment. The firefighters' union said the department has about 3,400 firefighters across 106 fire stations, a number unchanged since the 1960s; the proposal came in response to the January 2025 fires that destroyed thousands of homes in Pacific Palisades and killed 12 people. Supporters include the firefighters' union, Mayor Karen Bass and council members; opponents, the Los Angeles Police Protective League and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, argue the tax would further burden residents and that the city should fully fund the department instead.
Measure TE would give Pacific Palisades property owners a one-time exemption from the so-called "mansion tax," or Measure ULA: owners who sell within five years of the Palisades fire would receive relief from the 4% to 5.5% tax on property sales above $5.4 million. Councilwoman Traci Park, Bass, Council President Marqueece Harris-Dawson and the Palisades Community Council are among its supporters; Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez raised concerns earlier this year about how the exemption could be used by private companies, investors or people with portfolios of properties.
The six City Charter amendments are: Measure EE (ethics and governance reform: raising the maximum fine for campaign finance violations to $15,000, barring ethics commissioners from running for city office or the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education for at least five years after leaving the commission, empowering the LAPD inspector general and the LAFD independent assessor to open investigations and audits, and changing the City Council meeting requirement from at least three times a week to once a week); Measure LA (infrastructure and budgeting: a capital infrastructure plan, a two-year budget cycle, more authority for the director of the Department of Public Works, and allowing the city to sell products and mortgage city property); Measure PL (planning and land use: more authority for the Department of Planning over permit applications, limits on the City Council asserting jurisdiction over planning issues, and replacing the Department of City Planning's seven regional area commissions with one appeals board); Measure PRK (parks funding: raising the parks funding share from 0.00325% to 0.065% over 10 years); Measure PRT (proprietary departments: the Harbor Department, Los Angeles World Airports and the Department of Water and Power, including more waterfront public-access spending, lease terms of up to 66 years, and a requirement that five of seven airport commissioners live in airport-host communities); and Measure SC (clarifying that city election campaign rules also apply to LAUSD Board of Education elections).
For the City Council, the Third District (Tarzana, Woodland Hills, Canoga Park, Reseda and Winnetka) will choose between businessman Tim Gaspar and Barri Worth Girvan, a former government employee who worked for L.A. County Supervisor Lindsey Horvath, succeeding termed-out Bob Blumenfield; the Ninth District (South L.A.) will choose between Estuardo Mazariegos, co-director of the L.A. chapter of the Alliance of Californians for Community Empowerment, and Jose Ugarte, a former deputy chief of staff to termed-out Curren Price. For city attorney, California Deputy Attorney General Marissa Roy faces L.A. County Deputy District Attorney John McKinney, with a UC Berkeley poll released in the final week of October showing Roy ahead by 17 points.
The two county measures are: Measure A (banning labour strikes for public safety personnel, including certain fire department employees, sheriff's deputies, Department of Medical Examiner employees, district attorney investigators, lifeguards, supervisors and nonadministrative civilian staff, and mandating binding arbitration for unresolved disputes; the unions representing these employees have endorsed it, while critics argue it would take away the Board of Supervisors' leverage to make a final offer); and Measure E (codifying an independent ethics commission to enforce campaign finance laws and oversee conflicts of interest, and reinstating funding requirements under the 2020 voter-approved Measure J, which requires a minimum 10% of funding for youth development, job training and small-business support, alternatives to incarceration and other areas; the 2024 Measure G, which established the independent ethics commission, had repealed Measure J's funding requirements).
Sources: MyNewsLA, November 1, 2026.
Source: GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 图：洛杉矶市政厅。来源：Wikimedia Commons（Keizers，CC BY-SA 4.0）
